Possible Show Material - Microsoft Silverlight
August 28, 2008 - 6:55am
It's a cool technology
Silverlight is a really cool new technology. They did something right when they built it. The easiest way to think of it is as a competitor to flash. There are a number of things it does better than flash (like variable rate media). It works in a way that most Microsoft developers can jump right in with what they already know. Developers should love it.
It was used for this past olympics video which got it installed on over 5 million computers a day during the olympics.
All that being said, it doesn't have the distribution that flash does and it doesn't have the backing flash does. If it ever becomes an integral part of the web it would be about ont he same level as flash. You could have audio and video played through it all the way through full on web applications. At the same time the web is moving towards things like html5 which implements audio and video tags, the equivalent to google gears offline storage engine, and more being built right into the browsers. Safari4 and Firefox already have some of this stuff showing up in their dev releases.
If this the greatest thing since sliced bread? No. Is it really cool and useful? Totally. If you're a Microsoft developer and want to do the kinds of things you see being done in flash this is right up your alley. But realize your users will need to install something for it to work. Just like in the early days of flash.
Matt Farina
Geeks and God Co-Host
www.innovatingtomorrow.net
www.mattfarina.com
I have this buddy who is trying to persuade me to purchase Microsoft Visual Studio to create Microsoft Silverlight content for the web.
He is a big MS guy and swears that it's so quick, easy and powerful, and that it will be as integral as HTML in a few years, but I just don't know.
In your respective eyes, how does it compare to other technologies, such as Adobe Flash, Adobe Flex, Adobe Shockwave, Gears (software), and JavaFX, and when (if ever) is the time to jump on the bandwagon?
Sorry if I've missed a previous discussion on it. New listener and haven't made it through the archives yet.